Kickstarter - Have you backed? What did you think?

[Requia]

A number of things, anywhere from 4$-40$.

Results have been good, FATE Core is late as hell actually coming out in Dead tree but the PDF they sent me is as good as expected. I'm also waiting for a DVD copy (again, digital is good) of The Artist and the Olympian, I'm a tad disappointed in how short that was (barely made funding, no stretch goals, not a surprise), but I'd have funded anyway given the reason for the delay (He's trying to raise itnerest for a full documentary via traditional funding, and he can't enter film festivals once he releases the DVD).

Also a couple different books, which I've been very happy with. Though this was all last mile funding from semi-established authors for turning manuscripts into products, no real need for delays.

 

[generals3]

I'm in total agreement that if we pay for less plays and films and more for people not dying of hunger, that would be a better situation all round. But in most cases kickstarter isn't a fancy name for charity because you tend to be acquiring something for yourself, but with a little more risk involved. I'm essentially paying a $20 pre-order of Dreamfall Chronicles, but with the added risk that it might suck. Or I paid $5 to watch 12 episodes of Dolareus and Associates. And it is that direct relationship, because if collectively there isn't enough money to create that project at the end, we don't pay anything. We only pay on the expectation we'll receive a project (of course not all Kickstarters are like that. But normally if you're paying for someone to do something creative, then you get to look at that creative thing in the end).


There are lots of tiers where this isn't true, charitable feelings are part of the process and I'm incredibly uncomfortable about high reward tiers in kickstarters. I don't think people should be asking for $10 000 even if there are people out there willing to pay for it, but at the right level of investment, everyone involved in Kickstarter hopes to get something selfish out of it (which is why people don't back projects they wouldn't personally like to watch/play) which keeps it from being charity. (although does everyone being selfishly motivated make it much better The world would be a better place if we stopped buying games probably)

Well it's true that there are kick starters which offer some return but it doesn't seem to be nearly equitable. The return is often so small that it can compared with buying a t-shirt for a charity. in a way you get something in return but it's obviously a much lower return than you would normally get. Now off course, there are cases where the return is high enough to warrant the money invested (one could at that point assimilate it to a very early pre-order) but often it isn't the case

 

[Legion]

My question is have you backed on kickstarter?

On Kickstarter I have backed two projects. 'Torment: Tides of Numenera' and 'Among the Sleep'.
On IndieGoGo (which is the same thing really, just a different company) I have backed 'SkullGirls'.
On HumbleBundle I donated for 'Starbound', which is a spiritual successor to Terraria.


Did you pledge because, for some, you are really interested in and want such a game/film/item to come out or simply because you believe in and want to help out the creator?

Both. I was interested in the product and wanted to help the creators at the same time. If I didn't care for the companies that much I'd not have backed them though. After all, it is essentially a pre-order plus more.

How much did you pledge?

For 'Torment: Tides of Numenera' I pledged $45 as it got a copy of both that game, and the companies other game called 'Wasteland 2'.

For 'Among the Sleep' I donated just enough to get a copy which was $20 as I missed the early backer pledge of $15.

For 'SkullGirls' I pledged $30 that got a copy of the game when it comes out on Steam, plus the soundtrack as well as a few other things that didn't bother me (forum beta access and such).

For 'Starbound' I pledged $15 that got a copy of the game.

Annoyingly with all of them the bottom tiers that I got were a great price, but the middle tiers weren't that interesting. Only the top tiers had some really cool stuff, but I don't have that kind of disposable income.

Was it a good experience? Bad experience?

Neither really. Although it was enjoyable getting the updates as the developers were clearly so happy that people were supportive. It makes a nice difference from the arrogant people in the larger companies who seem to think fandom is deserved unreservedly.

Did you get a sense of really being involved in the project?

Not particularly, although that's not really why I donated.

Many of the pledge bonuses are exclusive forum access, voting rights on certain decisions, first looks and so on. Did you get a sense of being important?

Not particularly, only SkullGirls had voting and none of my damn choices made it.

Did the bonuses increase your donation or did simply believing in the project dictate whatever you gave?

I originally donated the bare minimum for a copy of the games upon release. If they then released a slightly better tier with something I wanted then I went for that. Which only happened with Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Would you pledge again?

Yes, I would. Assuming I believed in the project.

EDIT: Sorry Dopo for the unnecessary quote, I used your post to get the questions all lined up and bold, but forgot to delete the quote marks originally.

 

[Schadrach]

My question is have you backed on kickstarter?

97 times - http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/schadrach
'nuff said.

Did you pledge because, for some, you are really interested in and want such a game/film/item to come out or simply because you believe in and want to help out the creator?

Almost every times, it's been because I want the thing in question. Knock-knock would be a case of simply believeing in the creator (Ice-pick Lodge, the people behind the Void and Pathologic; it's also worth noting that I signed up for the "blind bargain" pledge level for that one -- curiosity decided to be a ***** that day).

How much did you pledge?

Depending on the project, between $5 (most of the video games have been between $5 and $15, typically the level for a digital copy if there weren't any particularly awesome KS exclusives) and $2500.

Was it a good experience?

That depends entirely on the project. In some cases it was, even in some cases with wildly late projects it has been (for example, the Serpent's Tongue people know how to treat people when you have a very lot of their money collectively and are running increasingly behind on what you've promised them for it -- frequent demonstrations of what you are doing, why it's taking so long, and that it will be worth it in terms of quality in the end). Others have produced more or less exactly what they intended to, in the expected quality, not too late, and have been more than friendly in resolving issues.

Bad experience?

Some of those too. Talk to the Kanzume Goddess backers for an example -- it's an English translation of an existing Japanese card game. This shouldn't be that complicated, but it ended up very late, they lied about shipping more than once, they botched even what they claimed was already shipped, ran out of something that was supposed to be a KS exclusive (and offered to refund $5 of the pledges or exchange for a different KS exclusive that was frequently being damaged in shipping), and to top it off you could by the game from a third party distributor, for cheaper than pledge price, get it with the originally KS exclusive pins they ran out of, and have it before they shipped many of the backer's copies (they were also selling it at PAX East 2013, my copy shipped in late April, despite that everything was supposed to ship before PAX, they then claimed it had shipped by 4/10, then on 4/18 that a certain pledge level had failed to ship [which I wasn't at], and took me pestering them for tracking info for nearly two weeks before mine shipped). That requires a special kind of terrible.

Again, it literally comes down to the individual project. Kanzume Goddess was a disaster in a league more or less of it's own. So is Code Hero (which may or may not ever be completed).

Most of the projects I've backed I would say have gone average to good, but typically late by several months. Everyone is just plain too optimistic in their estimates.

Did you get a sense of really being involved in the project?

Like every other thing I've posted, it depends wildly on the project. Serpent's Tongue has been deep on backer involvement (ranging from playtest feedback to actually encouraging player submitted card and art designs), some of the RPG books have used backers as their main playtest groups, other projects not so much.

Many of the pledge bonuses are exclusive forum access, voting rights on certain decisions, first looks and so on.
Did you get a sense of being important?

Being *important*? Not so much, most of the time.

Did the bonuses increase your donation or did simply believing in the project dictate whatever you gave?

Depends on the project, how enticing the bonuses were, and how much extra they cost. Nice exclusive goodies for relatively cheap FTW. I kinda went big on Zpocalypse, Zombicide, Serpent's Tongue, and Dwarven Froge Game Tiles, for example -- or at least bigger than I otherwise might have.

Would you pledge again?

I keep saying "no", but then...97 projects. You can guess what a more realistic answer might be.

 

[BrotherRool]

Well it's true that there are kick starters which offer some return but it doesn't seem to be nearly equitable. The return is often so small that it can compared with buying a t-shirt for a charity. in a way you get something in return but it's obviously a much lower return than you would normally get. Now off course, there are cases where the return is high enough to warrant the money invested (one could at that point assimilate it to a very early pre-order) but often it isn't the case

It depends on the project, and even within the project there are people putting in way too much money, but for example if you back a videogame, you get the game for $15-25 which is pretty good going and if it's a TV show or a webseries, paying $5 for that is a pretty good deal. (It doesn't matter that other people who didn't invest will be getting it for free because you'd still be putting in a price you'd reasonably pay). And it's fairly normal for webcomics to use Kickstarter just as a way of organising preorders for book collections efficiently.

As I said I disapprove of people putting in too much, but I guess it's one of those situations where if they were ever going to give that money to charity, they'd have done it by now. It's not like you have to wait or it's hard to find somewhere where your money can do good. The worlds got a pretty messed up sense of priorities and kickstarter is only a small fraction of that much much wider problem

 

[DSK-]

So far I've backed Star Citizen, Project Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenara.

Not really expecting anything decent from Eternity or Torment, though, and Star Citizen has me worried.

I pledged the lowest amount of money that would get me a digital copy of each game.

Had I known about them sooner, I would have probably pledged for Wasteland 2 and Planetary Annihilation.

 

[Rob Robson]

I have never backed on Kickstarter (to hell with Amazon pay, they don't support Europe and even once they do I will shun them forever for that douchebaggery)

But I have backed Star Citizen on their own website and put down $250.

 

[DolorousEdd]

There are at least three games I'm looking forward to and which also fit into my scheme of dream games more than anything by normal publisher models right now. Project Eternity, Tides of Numenera, Dreamfall Chapters. They are simply the kind of games many games should be or pretend to be, and finally they are trying for real. It could only get better by there suddenly being something uniquely console-y for the PC like Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted II... Of those three aforementioned I've only backed Project Eternity, not because I like it most, but because they were all doing well enough, and Project Eternity surprised me first and fit into a time period when I was most willing to preorder a game at least one and a half years before release. But maybe I'll jump on the bandwagon of either of those before too long.

Apart from those aforementioned I've also taken note of Wasteland II, Double Fine's Broken Age adventure, and Shadowrun Returns. Wasteland II might be excellent, but I honestly don't know what it will be like, and I have never been wild about postapocalyptic settings (they seem interesting for gameplay, but the setting just seems like an endless running gag, and just doesn't blow me away). I'm very interested in Double Fine's new classic adventure, but to be honest I'm not a fan of Double Fine itself, I think their style is a little shallow and pretentious (simple cartoon but supposedly something way more significant). The have a knack for feeling a little different from "normal" games though, and the gameplay might elevate their style. Shadowrun Returns seems like a good game but it currently seems a little too SNES-y to me and the setting seems a little too random and nerdy (Cyberpunk and Fantasy!), though I'm prepared to completely change my opinion about it.

Edit: Forgot those gigantic space sims and maybe something else. Very interested in those.

 

[Brown_Coat117]

Have you backed on Kickstarter?
Project Eternity, Shadowrun Returns, Torment: Tides of Numenera, what can I say I have a thing for RPG's

Did you pledge because, for some reason, you are really interested in and want such a game/film/item to come out or simply because you believe in and want to help out the creator?
Both, I want the games obviously but I would like more games along these lines, and would also like to create more awareness of the games themselves, helping them make a splash on KS seemed like a good way to accomplish both goals.

How much did you pledge
45 for Torment because I got both it and wasteland 2 (missed Wasteland's KS), 35 for Eternity for the soundtrack and a few other extras, and 30 for Shadowrun just because.

Was it a good experience? Bad experience?
YES

Did you get a sense of really being involved in the project
I really haven't cared to involve myself

Did you get a sense of being important?
To a degree, the games are going to be a direct result of the faith and resources that all the backers including myself have in the project in a truer sense than standard retail.

Did the bonuses increase your donation or did simply believing in the project dictate whatever you gave?
The bonuses, to be honest.

Would you pledge again?
Sure

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

I've only backed one project, and that was for a printed version of the webcomic Unsounded. I found the artwork beautiful enough and the story interesting enough that I wanted to support the author/artist, and that was the perfect opportunity. It was a good experience. Took kinda long for the book to get printed (lots of delays) but it didn't bug me much, and I feel like it was worth it when I got my hands on the finished product.

 

[SweetShark]

I backed right now two things:
-The 5 DLC characters [at first was only one] for the game Skullgirls coming on Steam this summer!!!!
-The big comic book "Black Torch". 20 artist for 15 stories. Great deal!!!

For your questions, I will copy the style of DoPo:

My question is have you backed on kickstarter?

Yep, the one is the comic "Black Torch". The Skullgirls DLC characters are from IndieGogo site.

Did you pledge because, for some, you are really interested in and want such a game/film/item to come out or simply because you believe in and want to help out the creator?

-I played the Skullgirls in PS3 and I love it!!! Having the opportunity to play Skullgirls in PC AND play with other 5 extra characters is always pleasant.
-The comic book "Black Torch" have one artist I love so much. Yep, you guess right, he is Alex Ahad, the one that design the characters for the game Skullgirls!!! I really want to read his comic!!! Plus the other stories look interesting as well.

How much did you pledge?

-30 dollars for Skullgirls to get the game on Steam and be able to vote for 2 of the DLC characters.
-10 dollars to take the digital download of the book.

Was it a good experience? Bad experience?

In the case of Skullgirls experiment was GOOD!!! I really enjoyed the time when we started to vote for the next 2 DLC characters of the game. All kind of emotions was here. To see who gonna be the 2 from the 32 characters [I think] to be able to make it in the game.

Did you get a sense of really being involved in the project?

Not really, but to be able to vote for a DLC character was a good experiment.

Many of the pledge bonuses are exclusive forum access, voting rights on certain decisions, first looks and so on. Did you get a sense of being important?

Answers above.

Did the bonuses increase your donation or did simply believing in the project dictate whatever you gave?

Nope, right now don't have a problem nd very soon will have them in my hands.

Would you pledge again?

Yep, I have two games in my mind, but no in Kickstarter, but in Offbeatr:
-Pocket Pussies: A Pokemon clone game but.......you guess it already.
-The other....I don't remember the title, but it is a book with Slime girls on it.